Hell Hath No Fury
by Ruby Casablanca
Summary: "Why?" he asked, voice registering barely above a whisper. "Why did you do it?" She winced, staring into the glass as if it were a bottomless abyss. In that moment, she looked lost. Scared. Like she was just as heartbroken and struggling as he was. "Because I could not bear to live in a world where he did not exist." Post-Defenders.


A/N: I've realized that I have a habit of writing stories where Elektra asks Matt's friends to protect him for her. Anyway, Defenders gave me a boatload of sadness, so this is my remedy to heartbreak: writing angst. I hope you all like it.

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Hell Hath No Fury

Climbing up achingly familiar steps, Foggy Nelson wished to be put out of his misery.

No part of him wanted to do this. No part of him wanted to be there, a place where he would only be tormented by regrets and memories that he could not change. He wished for something, anything to distract from the fact that he had spent the past year pushing his best friend away. Pretending that he didn't exist. Or worse, pretending that he was sick, like he was something broken in need of being fixed. A charity case to pawn cases off to in the same manner a clinician gave methadone to an addict. He felt sick thinking about the things he said, the things he did. His stomach rolled as he remembered all the accusations, the check ins, the worried looks as if he were Matt's parole officer when all the man wanted was his best friend.

Misery turned to self-loathing.

He was the worst kind of person. He had a laundry list of regrets he would go to the grave with now that there was no chance of ever making things right, and he couldn't talk to a tombstone. He wasn't strong enough to go there yet. It was bad enough at the funeral with Karen sobbing on his shoulder as Father Lantom warbled on and Jessica Jones showing up late and drunk while swiping at angry, mascara-stained tears. It was a small service, an intimate one, and all he thought about the whole time was how much Matt would have hated it.

At the top of the stairwell, the door looked exactly the same. Same old wood, same nicks and scratches from keys, and same creak as it swung open. The inside looked exactly the same as well, albeit there were things scattered and shattered across the floor, not picked up from when the earthquake hit just over a week ago. That, and there was someone waiting at the table.

A woman in a long black cloak sat at the far end, a bottle of whiskey set out in front of her with two glasses: one empty, one half full.

She looked beaten to hell. Her face was a myriad of bruises and cuts. Dried blood crusted near her temple and the ring around one of her eyes was beginning to blacken. Still, she looked beautiful in the untamable, exotic kind of way. Dark black curls knotted like a wild thing, red lips twisted into a semblance of a smile.

"Who are you?" he asked, reaching discreetly for his phone as he cautiously approached. It would take one tap to call the police and they would be there in a matter of minutes. "What do you want?"

"You know who I am."

It was the accent that did it. His blood first ran cold in shock, then escalated to a boil within a matter of seconds.

"Elektra."

They had never been formally introduced. When she and Matt were together, he was always out with her, never brought her back to their dorm. All he'd gotten were glimpses through photographs and the odd story every once in a while. When they broke up, Matt stopped talking about her altogether. Matt was very secretive about his relationship with her, and it wasn't until recently that he knew why.

She was a monster. She killed him.

"I must say, it is an honor," she said with forced cordiality. "Matthew used to tell me stories about you: the great Franklin Nelson. We meet at last."

"I wish I could say the same," he replied evenly though he was itching to throw her out. How dare she show her face here? How dare she think she had any right? "What are you doing here? You know this is considering breaking an entry. I could have you written up on so many charges - "

"But you won't," she stopped him mid-rant, embers sparking in those black, soulless eyes. "If vengeance is what you wanted you would have already done it."

" _What are you doing here?_ " he repeated, his voice grinding out as a hiss through clenched teeth.

"I came to talk. About Matthew."

The sound of his dearly departed friend's name sounded so wrong coming from her lips, accented and full of life, that he could not bear it. He could not bear this woman, his _murderess_ , to speak a name so close to the heart.

"Get out."

She cocked her head, and he felt pleased to see he had managed to surprise her.

"Don't you want to hear what I have to say?"

"I said _get out_!" he shouted this time, starting towards the door, fists clenched at his sides to prevent himself from lashing out.

She stayed put, not moving an inch.

"Why did you take him from us?" he demanded, lips trembling with barely controlled grief and rage. "He only stayed behind because he thought he could save you. Why drag him down with you? Matt was my best friend and you just…do you have any idea what that was like? I loved him! Okay? Karen loved him! We both loved him and you just played your little minds games, dragged him back into this vigilante mess, and he died, because of you, and it's like you don't even care!"

He pinched the bridge of nose, trying to hold himself together because he would be damned if he cried in front of this psychopath.

"Do you feel any remorse?" he ranted, feeling the anger crash through him in waves. "Do you feel anything at all? You stupid, selfish bitch - "

He was cut off by the sound of grating metal, and suddenly there was a three-pronged blade sticking out of the center of the table right between his middle and ring finger. Her hand was on the hilt, and it was shaking. Badly.

"Do not, for _one second_ , presume to think that you have the monopoly on loving him, because you're _wrong_ ," she hissed, like some kind of wounded animal.

Her fingers balled into fists, her gaze murderous, and for a moment he believed that she may actually kill him. But then her breathing steadied, her eyes glassed over and she had to look away. Had to take another drink and then pour another glass to drown out her heartache.

"He is alive, you know," she said, eyes fixed downward into the swirling vortex of amber liquid. "I pulled him from the wreckage with my bare hands. I brought him back."

It felt like the air had been sucked from his lungs. He lurched forward in his chair with morbid fascination and the first, treacherous feelings of hope. There was no way she was telling the truth. This was too good to be true, and nothing good ever happened to Franklin Nelson. Well, one good thing happened, but then that good man was taken away...or was he?

But then it registered. She brought him _back_. Not saved him, not rescued him, but restored life to something that was previously lifeless. Matt had died. The Devil of Hell's Kitchen had been felled. He was gone, or at least, some part. Which part? Was it his smile that remained in the grave, or all their cherished memories? It did not matter. It did not change the haunting image of his best friend, alone in the dark lying in a puddle of blood amongst the ruins of the city he'd died to protect.

"Where is he?" he asked, hating the desperation and eagerness he heard.

"Safe…healing…"

She sounded far away, as if she had to convince herself of it. Perhaps she did. Perhaps it was the only way to unsee the greying corpse of the man she loved.

"Why?" he asked, voice registering barely above a whisper. "Why did you do it?"

She winced, staring into the glass as if it were a bottomless abyss. In that moment, she looked lost. Scared. Like she was just as heartbroken and struggling as he was.

"Because I could not bear to live in a world where he did not exist."

The answer was such a simple yet stunning one, a confession ripped from tormented lips. It left him at a loss for words, unable to comprehend the complexity of the agony in those dark brown eyes. Agony that turned to anger as soon as it was discovered.

"You do not deserve him. This city does not deserve him," she spat her venom, full of righteous fury as she laid into the man across from her. He did not even flinch, accepting her words as truth. "He gave his life to protect those he loved, yet you turned your backs on him. You ran from him at the first glimpse of his nature, not even bothering to learn who he truly was. You thought he had a Devil inside, that it was something to be beaten into submission but you were wrong. Matthew may have worn his shroud and counted imaginary sins but he is no more a Devil than The Hand were God."

"You were Hand."

Her lips twisted up into a cruel smile, though that cruelty was aimed at no one but herself.

"True. I have risen from the dead. Tell me, Franklin Nelson, does that make me God?"

For the briefest of moments, her mask slipped. He studied her face: the primal animosity, the rage, the bloodlust. More than that, the anguish and pain. So much pain. More pain than he thought one person was ever capable of bearing. He shuddered, forced to look away.

"If you're God, then we're all screwed."

She canted her head back and laughed, a harsh jarring sound that filled the somber space with too much noise to be considered appropriate for mourning.

"When Matthew and I were in that cave, and the building was coming down around our heads, I wanted us to die. I wanted us to be together, forever," she said, her fingers tapping idly on the rim of her glass. "I was being selfish."

"We were both selfish," he replied quietly, not to her but more of an admission of a long-suppressed truth. "We both wanted to make him into what he wasn't."

She hummed in agreement.

"You shunned the darkness in his soul, and I craved to feed it, neither of us grasping the light that hid just below the surface. Not until it was too late. And now…we've both lost him."

The glass made a heavy thud against the table as she finished another round. He didn't say anything as she poured her third.

"Is he going to come back…like you?"

"I do not know," she admitted, cracks of uncertainty infiltrating her mask. "But if I had to put my faith in one power, it would be him. Matthew is strong, far stronger and better than I could ever hope to be. If there is anyone capable of holding on to their humanity, it is him."

"You could have written this all in a note, slipped it under my office door, saved yourself a lot of trouble," he sighed, looking a her curiously. "Why come all the way here?"

"Other than the fact that I am both wanted and presumed dead?" she asked, cocking a brow as if he were stupid for missing the blatantly obvious. "Because you would not have believed me otherwise."

He could not argue with that. An unsigned, mysterious note appearing on his desk saying that his best friend was actually alive…he would have chalked it up to some sick joke.

She shook her head and took a long drink, emptying it entirely. By this point, there was nothing left in the bottle, and he knew Matt well enough to know that any liquor other than beer found in his apartment did not come from his apartment. Gluttony, after all, was a mortal sin.

"Besides," she sighed, tipping her head to the side and letting out a long breath, "he loves you. He would never forgive me if I, knowing what I know, had left you to suffer."

He did not know what to do with this information. He did not feel worthy of this love. He did not feel worthy to be held in such high esteem. He did not feel as though he deserved to be that close to a man who all he'd done was hurt. His eyes stung with tears that he would not let fall - not yet, not ever.

The room shifted when she stood, a shadow draped in black with streaks of crimson. A spider weaving her web. A ghost haunting a corpse. She towered above him as her hands disappeared into the void of her coat only to pull out a wrinkled, bloodstained piece of paper. She handed it over.

"What is this?"

"The address of the convent where I left Matthew," she said, as if he should have known. He stood and took it with trembling hands, careful not to drop his chance at salvation. "Take care of him."

He tore his gaze from the note, the location already stained in his memory. She was moving away, prying her blade from the table. It would leave a permanent gouge, but Matt was not around to complain.

"Why does it sound like you're leaving?"

"Because I am."

He was dumbfounded. Here she was, breaking in and risking exposure to threaten and scold him about abandoning Matt, and she was doing the same thing.

"The Hand, though weakened, has still managed to survive. Once they have regained numbers, they will come for me. I must be ready to face them when the time comes, and I cannot afford distractions…nor the people I care for getting in my way," she explained, tone full of sorrowful acceptance. "It is not safe for me to be near him. All I bring is death."

One step forward, and they were eye to eye, far closer than he felt comfortable. Close enough for her to hear his heartbeat escalate. She could kill him so easily. The only difference between the beginning of this conversation and the end was that he trusted her not to.

"Protect him, Franklin Nelson. Keep him safe."

He nodded.

"I will."

Satisfied, she stepped away and kept walking until she was at the door.

One last glance in his direction and she was gone.

He followed behind a moment later, perhaps out of the curiosity if whether their interaction was even real. But she was gone, not a single trace of a black cloak or crimson in sight. As if she had vanished in thin air. As if she were a ghost.

The note in his hand told him otherwise. Matt was out there, somewhere, hurting and alone. Matt needed help, and this time, he would lend it. Without hesitation, no judgements, no strings attached. As the best friend he should have been the entire time.

Destination in mind, he left the apartment.

 _I'm coming for you Matty._


End file.
